Keynote Speeches

Keynote #1, Wednesday June 21, 2017

Mr. Maurits Groen

Co-Founder and CEO of WakaWaka

Sharing the Sun through a sustainable business model

            …and why we need more of those

During his keynote, Maurits Groen, founder and CEO of WakaWaka, will share innovative insights into the sustainable business model that his company uses to generate a positive impact around the world. From the supply chain to technology development and from key partners to customer relationships, a sustainable business model is an integrated one. Maurits will explain why more businesses should and can promote social, environmental and economic sustainability by using disruptive and sustainable business models.

Keynote #2, Wednesday June 21, 2017

Mr. Antony Upward

Co-Founder of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Community

Embracing the normative in business modelling:

What does a successful new business model need to describe?

If we choose to define success - a normative idea- for us individually, for our families, communities, enterprises, government, societies and for our planet - without building directly and explicitly on what the relevant science tells us, we are choosing to harm ourselves, future generations and all other life. 

But what does business model need to include if it is to describe a socially, environmentally, and economically successful enterprise based on the currently available transdisciplinary science?

This key note will explore the philosophical conceptual framing, the systems context for and the trans-disciplinary concepts which are required to describe future business models that enable and “sustain the possibility for human and other life to flourish on this planet forever” (John Ehrenfeld, 2000, MIT)

Keynote #3, Thursday June 22, 2017

Mr. Jan Jonker

Professor Corporate Sustainability,

Nijmegen School of Management,

Radboud University (The Netherlands)

Transforming Business Models

Sustainable. Inclusive. Circular.

Society is in transition, gradually replacing the boundless pursuit of material prosperity by the one driven by sustainable development, social inclusivity and material circularity. This transition takes shape around various shifts in the economic realm as well as the political or broader societal domain.  It is within these economic transitions that we observe the emergence of a generation of new business models that foster sustainability, social inclusion and circularity. We place these three strands of business models under the umbrella of new business models. Together they address various aspects of addressing novel societal needs. In doing so they give substance to the economic transitions society desires since they are embedded in everyday transactions. In this key-note these emerging models will be introduced, linked to each other and positioned in the societal-organisational field of change and transition.